Directed by Neil Dorward. Until January 7 at the Princess of Wales Theatre, 300 King St. W. Mirvish.com, 416-872-1212 or 1-800-461-3333.

The Illusionists is a globally successful entertainment franchise: a series of touring productions that feature live magic and circus acts. Some (The Illusionists — Turn of the Century and Circus 1903) hearken to past times, while this one delivers an esthetic that’s straight out of today’s Vegas with a touch of reality TV thrown in.

Basically it’s a series of magic acts featuring performers given Marvel Comics-like names: The Trickster, The Unusualist, The Eccentric. Purists might complain that including a big video screen in a magic show is cheating, but this helps make the show work in a large-scale theatre like the Princess of Wales, and this kind of spectator experience — looking back and forth between the person and their screen image — is familiar from sports and arena concerts and makes the show feel contemporary.

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There are blasts of magic-tinged theatricality at climactic points — the performers appearing in tableaux from behind clouds of smoke, lights, and pyro. But the guts of this show is the magic itself, and the director Neil Dorward and producers Simon Painter and Tim Lawson have curated it intelligently, providing a wide variety of acts for different tastes and interests.

For those who like the heart-in-your-throat, “is someone gonna die here?” type of thing, there’s The Daredevil (Jonathan Goodwin)’s bed of nails, crossbow shooting, and straitjacket escape routines (the latter accomplished while hanging upside down and in flames). Goodwin — bald, bodybuilder-ripped, and in black leather when he’s not shirtless — wins The Illusionists’ bad-assery contest for sure: you can’t fake what he’s doing (and I doubt you can do it yourself, dear reader).

Those who are into contemporary mentalism will probably groove on The Deductionist (Colin Cloud), who made it to the semifinals of America’s Got Talent this year, causing controversy by convincing judge Mel B to stab Simon Cowell (the knife was rubber, of course). In an extended second act routine Cloud tells a large number of audience members what they’re thinking, but because there’s no proof other than the individual saying that he got it right, this became repetitive and a bit dubious.

If you appreciate the esthetically pleasing, then The Manipulator (An Ha Lim)’s card trickery will be up your alley: against recorded musical accompaniment, he produces deck after deck after cards seemingly out of thin air and makes them change colour and fall to the ground like waterfalls. He’s an elegantly charming showman.

Canadian Darcy Oake (The Master Illusionist) does some classic sleight of hand and animals-out-of-nowhere routines; Raymond Crowe’s Unusualist sets include ventriloquism and his viral sensation hand puppetry, which really is quite beautiful.

Each performer gives at least two spotlighted performances, with Jeff Hobson’s Trickster serving as emcee and doing old-school hand magic tricks. It took me a while to warm to Hobson given his off-colour humour — in my book, it’s too soon for #metoo jokes — but he got a lot funnier in the second act and was great with audience interaction (“I know this looks silly, but it kept me out of the army”, he quipped, while making a balloon animal for a cute seven-year-old).

Popping tickets to this show into the Christmas stocking of your favourite feminist is not recommended: reflecting the male dominance of the field, all the featured performers are men, and women feature only as sexily clad assistants and/or target practice.

Something of an exception — and this is part of what made theirs my personal favourite act — is Sherry Frye, real-life wife of Charlie “The Eccentric” Frye, who plays the bored helpmate to her husband’s truly amazing juggling and object-balancing routines. Their act is theatrical and ironically knowing, and Charlie’s skills are the real deal.

I brought a magic-loving friend to the show and he thoroughly enjoyed it, saying “it lifts me out of the mundane.” And at over two hours long, audiences get their money’s worth.